Chimera
by Angelfirenze
Summary: That, and Midnite figured that Constantine owed him. Like always. House, Season 2/Constantine, post-movie General WIP, so far.
1. Conduit

**Chimera**  
_By Angelfirenze and ChiaraStorm_

**Summary:** That, and Midnite figured that Constantine owed him. Like always.  
**  
Disclaimer:** Nothing is ours, particularly not Constantine or House. This is a source of constant sorrow.

**Notes:** Major thanks to **iminsanehonest** for letting us borrow a not-so-minor plot point, and also to all the people who assured us that this idea was not completely crazy…

Chapter I: Conduit

Great. Just..._fucking great…_

Constantine stubbed the butt of the cigarette, now reduced to mere embers, into the beaker that would have to serve as an ashtray. Everything around him was so fucking sterile, so clean and pristine that it almost felt like an obligation to smoke, just to get the bitter taste of antiseptic and bleach out of his nose. At some point a nurse or someone would come in to tell him to stop it, but at that moment, he would have a hard time caring.

He lay back against the cool hospital pillow, feeling the hot smoke disappear down his throat. Better. He was sick of staring at this wall, this ceiling, being surrounded by so much cleanliness and sanitation. He'd seen things from Hell that would turn this place into a cess pool in five seconds. All the cleanliness and antiseptic in the world wasn't going to sort that out.

It wasn't just that that was weighing on his mind though. This place, all of the hospitals he'd ever been to, had merged into one. Psychiatric as well as ordinary. Hardly happy memories. Just electric shock therapy, priests performing exorcisms on him and the sheer bitter frustration of being able to See and not being able to communicate it to anyone else.

Don't get into that, he warned himself. Think of something else. Anything else.

Helpfully, the only thing that was coming to mind was the recurring question; why the fuck did I have to wind up in New Jersey?

He didn't particularly have anything against the place. It just wasn't where he wanted to be right now. Ideally, he'd be back in LA, and he'd also have a leg out of traction. But, you reap what you sow, right?

Oh, _fuck_ that.

It wasn't even as though he'd really wanted to come. Trust Midnite to call in a favour now. Of all times, now. But Midnite had a lead on a relic. Something rare and valuable and that totally wasn't meant to exist outside of history books. And for some reason, he'd decided to ask Constantine to go pick it up for him.

"So why are you entrusting the fucking job to me?" he'd asked him after a second of deadpan silence, where he'd stared at Midnite, wondering whether this was some big joke by someone with a lousy sense of humour. Sadly, it wasn't. Apparently there was no-one else with enough psychic ability to go and get it for him, to dig it out of its hiding place. That, and Midnite figured that Constantine owed him. Like always. It would be more unusual for Midnite to admit that Constantine's debt was paid off, that he really hadn't known that that dodgy relic from India wasn't authentic, or that he didn't owe him for using the chair. But, always generous, Midnite had offered him money. And that cinched the deal.

That, and the fact that he wanted to get out of LA. It was too difficult now, what with everything that had happened at Ravenscar, and Angela. It was all getting too complicated, too involving. So, though he wasn't going to say this to Midnite, he probably would have gone to pick up the relic anyway, just to have an excuse to leave. It had seemed easy. Get in, grab the relic, and get out. A simple enough mission.

Until this.

It would have been so much simpler if Midnite had warned him that the damned thing was in a church. And that it was protected by half-breed angels. And then he realised why he had been sent there. Midnite was neutral – painfully so – and it would take someone who was already damned to do something like steal from the angels.

_Fuckwit. With friends like him, who needs enemies?_

So, it was time for a hasty exit. Unfortunately, it's really hard to see when you've got angel feathers flying into your eyes. As he found out. So it was really the combination of feathers, bad timing, the road outside, the heavy rain and his sheer fucking bad luck that meant that that SUV had rammed into him. And he hadn't even seen until the thing had been right on top of him. Slick. Very. Especially now that his left leg was in traction, and he was stuck in a fucking hospital. The paramedics and two nurses to date had told him that he was lucky, and the next person who did…well, he wouldn't be accountable for his actions. Luck was a relative term.

And so now, now that he was just feeling like crap, with pain shooting down his leg and annoyance and cynicism eating into his brain, he decided to fuck it up royally. Like the cherry on top of the cake. The pain was like a knife in his lungs, willing him to pick up that little, seemingly harmless white stick and take in the hot smoke that seemed so very life-giving, ironically.

So he was stuck here, in Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital – Christ, what a name – with one leg in traction, possibly a few dozen pissed half-breed angels after him and with a lot of time to kill. Which was part of the reason for the cigarettes, he told himself. But inside he knew that that was a crock. It was addiction, plain and simple. And that was a little side effect of the Devil's plan. He removed his cancer, left the addiction for him to deal with. Torture. Pure, exquisite torture. But, hey, he was Lucifer, that was his job.

A gaggle of people went by his window – white coats, just more doctors. He wouldn't have paid any attention to them, except that he sensed something from one of them. Not something on the human spectrum of emotions, although there was some of that mixed up in there. But underlying that thin façade was something else. Something he'd sensed far too often before. Something demonic.

The group of doctors rounded a corner, and slowly the influence faded. But it was there, unmistakably so. Which meant that there was something in this hospital that interested the half-breeds. Which couldn't be good. Which meant, more fucking trouble, the kind that only he could avert.

John lay back on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling with a mixture of bitterness, cynicism and his own personal brand of emotion, which was called 'fuck-it-all'. It all had to happen at once. Especially when he was hundreds of miles from LA, and knew absolutely no-one here who could help him.

_Great. More fucking trouble…_

...TBC...


	2. Meeting

**Chimera****  
**_By Angelfirenze and ChiaraStorm_

**Disclaimer: **Nothing is ours, particularly not Constantine or House. This is a source of constant sorrow.

**Inspiration: **Duh. Panic! At the Disco's new album, **A Fever You Can't Sweat Out,** and the song, 'Passive,' of course, by A Perfect Circle, among others. Chapter One of 'Drenched,' by iminsanehonest, who has kindly consented to let me borrow a not-so-minor plot point.

**Summary:** "Well, I just was going over the _bound editions_ masquerading as your file. Less than a _year_ ago you were diagnosed with stage four terminal lung cancer."

**Dedications: **Again, this chapter is dedicated to **iminsanehonest**, as well as **ChiaraStorm**, who totally jumped on board the moment I mentioned this idea. ::bright grin::

**Part II:** Meeting

"House!"

House cringed and frowned deeply as the click of Cuddy's heels got closer and closer. The damned elevator was taking longer and longer to get here. He just _knew _she had maintenance in her pockets.

_Bastards._

Scowling, he slowly turned around as Cuddy came clicking up to him. Taking a deep breath, he smiled brightly at her, knowing from the look on her face that she would shortly bury him in Clinic work or some other drudgery. He wasn't disappointed.

"You know, House, if you weren't so busy hobbling away from clinic duty this morning, you _might _have realized we're short of beds."

"Really?" House asked, surprised and curious enough not to make a snide comment. "You mean people actually _like_ coming to this hellhole?"

"Apparently so," Cuddy said, eyebrow raised at House's uncharacteristic lack of sarcasm. "Now, there's a particular patient who came in about a half hour ago after crashing into a light pole. And, yes, House, he was stone cold sober. The EMTs at the scene verified that he is coherent and understands the pile of crap he's landed in. He'll be placed in the Diagnostics Department. You get his case." With that, she pushed a thick manila folder into his hand.

"What? Why?" House frowned, looking up from the file and glaring at his boss. "It's just a broken leg."

"As I said earlier, you have free beds whereas the rest of the hospital is short. Shut up and take him. He's as mean-spirited, arrogant, and rude as you are. You two should get along just swell."

Cuddy smiled at House, clearly reveling in his annoyance. "Go on," she elaborated. "Chop chop."

House smiled back, leering at her. "You know, if you went down to the ER instead of me, I'm sure the sight of the girls chomping at the bit will set the poor bastard right at ease."

Cuddy rolled her eyes, pointing in the direction of the emergency room. "Go. Now. Before I give you an entire extra month of clinic duty."

"You're so mean to me," House pouted, tracing an imaginary tear down his right cheek. Turning around and limping back past Cuddy, he forged onward to the doom that was the overcrowded emergency room.

"Bastard," Cuddy murmured affectionately under her breath.

* * *

"You _do _realize you're in a hospital, don't you, you illiterate moron?"

John Constantine looked up from the fresh cigarette he was lighting to see some bastard in a jacket and t-shirt limping through the door with a cane.

He sneered. "Yeah. Planning on doing something about it?" He eyed the cane. The other asshole smiled grimly and held up what had to be his file. _Fuck_.

"Well, I just was going over the _bound editions_ masquerading as your file. Less than a _year_ ago you were diagnosed with stage four terminal lung cancer."

He paused and limped over to the cabinet, where he leaned heavily against it, his eyebrow raised in nonchalance. "A week and a half ago, your doctor in Los Angeles ordered up three x-rays—"

"Two. I wasn't going to sit through that shit for a third time."

"Fine. Two. Either way, the aggressive cancer tumors in your lungs are gone. Poof! Like someone reached right in and snatched 'em out."

John fidgeted slightly, distinctly remembering the pain of Lucifer's hands digging around inside his chest.

_You're going to prove your soul belongs in Hell…_

"Now, that's all fine and dandy—you're reasonably healthy again. Can't say much for the brain, though, what with your car currently in the compromising position of being deeply involved in a torrid affair with a light pole downtown—can't say much for the eyes, either, seeing as you _clearly _can't read the signs written with_ large, glaring red, five hundred-something point font letters that say, NO SMOKING, you idiot!"_

The bastard suddenly lurched forward, moving far faster than John had given him credit for, and limped across the room over to John's bed, whereupon reaching it, he snatched the cigarette out of John's mouth and threw in on the ground, stepping on it and putting it out.

"I'm not going to stop you from fucking your lungs back up. That's your business. You want to die a horribly painful death, hacking up bits of your bronchial tubes and your alveoli, your visceral pleura, all of it—then you go right ahead. Should be fun. Suffocation by asphyxiation. However, asshole, you won't do it in this hospital and certainly not while you're my patient."

John stared at this son of a bitch who had just identified himself as John's new doctor. "You're not wearing a white coat."

Then he proceeded to marvel at the incredibly asinine statement that had just left his mouth without his permission. Sure enough, the…_doctor_ smiled; a dark smirk full of cynical amusement that the stubble covering his face did no favors for, regarding possible comfort. Who the fuck was this asshole?

"_You're not wearing a white coat_," the doctor mocked, his smirk growing further. "Is that the best you've got?"

John smiled back and gave him the finger. "You'll have to forgive me; not really at my best right now. My leg isn't all that much up for witty repartee at the moment."

"Excuses, excuses," the doctor dismissed, rolling his eyes and limping closer to the bed. He reached down and grasped John's torn pant leg, ripping the fabric further to examine the brand new cast fitted by one of the nurses the previous hour.

"Aw, isn't that sweet; the nurses gave you a blue one."

He tickled John's exposed toes and snickered when the younger man jumped slightly before yelping in pain. "Hey—cut that shit out!"

The doctor merely smiled. "So, John Constantine who's-on-a-mission-to-put-himself-in-an-early-grave, not to mention, fuck up _my _lungs, too, while he's at it...you're my responsibility for the next however many days. We're both shit out of luck. Oh well."

With that, he turned and limped out of John's room, shutting the door behind him. It was only once he'd gone that John realized he still didn't know the asshole's name.

**...TBC...**


End file.
